Dan Snyder spent years deciding which new name to give his team. Yesterday, the owner of the Washington, DC National Football League franchise formerly known as the Redskins and then the Washington Football Team announced that the club will henceforth be known as The Washington Commanders™.
His decision brings a final end to years of controversy over the team’s former name-which-shall-not-be-mentioned. That is the way lamestream media is reporting this news today, anyway.
But to right-thinking Americans, this new moniker is also unacceptable. The team identified with the national capitol of the United States should not have such an authoritarian, militaristic club name.
By accepting this change, the NFL condones the cisheteronormative patriarchal capitalist system of white supremacist genocide and settler colonialism that makes everything in America so terrible that no one wants to live here.
How many indigenous people and people of various colors have been killed by American “commanders,” hmm? Is this really the public-facing image we want for Washington, let alone the game of football? A big, brutal person commanding us to win?
Of course, the NFL is an avenue through which those same identities suffering the most in our racist American hellscape escape poverty to become social media successes.
But they should not be forced to endure a team name that is commonly associated with law enforcement. If people are too triggered to watch the Superbowl, is that really good for football?
I am not one of these people, but I am sure there are many. Perhaps no one else will speak for them, but I will, because it is the right thing to do.
Equity and diversity are all-American ideals. It’s time we lived up to them. We must decolonize American tackle football so as to be inclusive of disadvantaged communities which are sensitized to arbitrary authority, such as sissy kids who don’t like sports.
It’s the American way.
